Grimoire of Service, underrated?

It seems almost without exception, that every Warlock I see is using Supremacy, either with the Observer or Wrathguard; very rarely I'll see a Warlock with a Felguard. Now obviously it's what sims out very marginally best on a Patchwerk encounter, I get that, but I'd have thought that with all the encounters this tier with temporary damage buffs, or downtime between phase changes that there's a lot of opportunities here to get a bit more out of Service to overcome that tiny margin. Afterall, the extra pet can be stacked with those damage buffs, and it's cooldown keeps on ticking while your Supremacy pet is forced to stop DPSing. Let's take a look at the encounters:

Jin'rok - Puddles.
Horridon - Stacking vulnerability debuff
Council - Target switching can lead to some downtime, but also a lot of guilds do this by zerging Sul making Service the obvious choice
Magaera - Head switching leads to downtime
Ji'kun - Puddles
Primordious - Mutated buff
Iron Qon - Lots of phase change downtime
Lei Shen - Lots of phase change downtime

So on 8 out of 12 fights, there's pretty decent potential to be able to get a bit more out of Service, so how come people aren't using it? I'd also question the use of the Observer, as it's actually the pet most susceptible to loss through movement/switching due to the short range on Tongue Lash, but that's a slightly different thing...

A lot of people take supremacy because it has the toss and forget factor. Many people DON'T like micromanaging their pets. Service is also a minor dps loss on ALL fights without a damage boost for anyone but demo. Demo can use it to neutral DPS/DPS gain a lot of the time.

And if you're taking sup or serv on ji-kun, what the hell are you doing? Pets are buggy as hell on that fight.

The more time spend watching cooldowns the less time spend watching everything else (so what the guy above me said).

If during a best case scenario Service provides equal dps since that is what blizzard is aiming for (Sac being one of the exceptions when it comes to dps talents) then you should always choice the talent which is fire and forgot.

A lot of people take supremacy because it has the toss and forget factor. Many people DON'T like micromanaging their pets. Service is also a minor dps loss on ALL fights without a damage boost for anyone but demo. Demo can use it to neutral DPS/DPS gain a lot of the time.

I see a bit of 'second place is trash' mentality here. The gap between the Felhunter (serv) and Observer (sup) is less than 100 DPS for Destruction according to EJ; you really think that's an insurmountable gap given the opportunities to get more from the mechanics stated above? For Affliction the gap is just short of 1k; I get that that is asking more of a player.

And if you're taking sup or serv on ji-kun, what the hell are you doing? Pets are buggy as hell on that fight.

Never had problem with them, I understand if you're flying or if you fail at downdraft they can despawn.

Originally Posted by ati87

The more time spend watching cooldowns the less time spend watching everything else (so what the guy above me said).

If during a best case scenario Service provides equal dps since that is what blizzard is aiming for (Sac being one of the exceptions when it comes to dps talents) then you should always choice the talent which is fire and forgot.

You can macro it to Dark Soul, that's not exactly watching more timers :3

Again, if your Supremacy pet isn't attacking, you're loosing the 20% damage for that period, you lose nothing from Service so long as it's attacking at all times it's up. It's not just about stacking damage buffs.

I've had it despawn a few times when flying from the nest to the upper platform. Also when jumping down from upper nests it can be buggy. Another reason i personally like for GoSac is that Sac Pact will be able to absorb the full Quills, making it pretty trivial as lock.

I agree, GoServ is pretty underappreciated. I find that I use it a lot more than Supremacy, mostly for the reasons Jessicka posted in the top post. Oddly enough, I find myself as either 0 pets or 15+...

I don't see Service being that great on those fights with damage bonuses. Let me put it this way:

Service has a 2 min cooldown but most dmg bonuses happen more often than that - so you can only take advantage of every other bonus at best, whereas with Supremacy/Sacrifice you can take full advantage of all of them.

So on Jin'rokh for example, you can use Service on maybe 2/4 pools, meaning you get extra damage on those 2, but you lose damage on the other 2. Is the damage gained during those 2 phases worth the loss of damage on the other 2 phases? Possibly for demo using a GoServ: Felguard, but almost certainly not for the other specs.

On Primordius you can have 20 seconds of burst with GoServ, or 120 seconds sustained damage with GoSup/GoSac, guess which one ends up being higher?

My point is that in the long run, short term burst often isn't as good as full time sustained damage. It may look better at the time but those numbers will even out and come down over the couse of a fight and often end up being lower overall. If you don't really need the burst (Spine of Deathwing for example), you're likely to end up loosing overall damage.

I don't see Service being that great on those fights with damage bonuses. Let me put it this way:

Service has a 2 min cooldown but most dmg bonuses happen more often than that - so you can only take advantage of every other bonus at best, whereas with Supremacy/Sacrifice you can take full advantage of all of them.

So on Jin'rokh for example, you can use Service on maybe 2/4 pools, meaning you get extra damage on those 2, but you lose damage on the other 2. Is the damage gained during those 2 phases worth the loss of damage on the other 2 phases? Possibly for demo using a GoServ: Felguard, but almost certainly not for the other specs.

On Primordius you can have 20 seconds of burst with GoServ, or 60 seconds sustained damage with GoSup/GoSac, guess which one ends up being higher?

My point is that short term burst often isn't as good as full time sustained damage, it may look better at the time but those numbers will even out over the couse of a fight and often end up being lower overall. If you don't really need the burst (Spine of Deathwing for example), you're likely to end up loosing overall damage.

If you use it on Jin Rokh, you can use it at the start of the first pool, the end of the second pool, and the fourth pool (if you have that)

There was a period where Service: Succubus simmed out higher than Supremacy: Observer for me for destruction, by about 300 dps.

I tried it out a few times but unless you're in melee range you have to remember that pets have a travel time. For demo I prefer service, it just makes for much nicer burst.

I get the travel time, it's why I use Succubus/Shivarra, there's less loss from movement thanks to the 20 yard range on LoP and they're not prone to sitting in shit like the Imp.

Originally Posted by Netherspark

I don't see Service being that great on those fights with damage bonuses. Let me put it this way:

Service has a 2 min cooldown but most dmg bonuses happen more often than that - so you can only take advantage of every other bonus at best, whereas with Supremacy/Sacrifice you can take full advantage of all of them.

So on Jin'rokh for example, you can use Service on maybe 2/4 pools, meaning you get extra damage on those 2, but you lose damage on the other 2. Is the damage gained during those 2 phases worth the loss of damage on the other 2 phases? Possibly for demo using a GoServ: Felguard, but almost certainly not for the other specs.

On Primordius you can have 20 seconds of burst with GoServ, or 120 seconds sustained damage with GoSup/GoSac, guess which one ends up being higher?

My point is that in the long run, short term burst often isn't as good as full time sustained damage. It may look better at the time but those numbers will even out and come down over the couse of a fight and often end up being lower overall. If you don't really need the burst (Spine of Deathwing for example), you're likely to end up loosing overall damage.

Even if you can't exploit them all there should still be a net gain when stacking up peaks over spreading damage filling the troughs as well; some of the damage from Sup/Sac during your 120s of sustained is actually being applied while you have no buff at all; if your pet is running between adds, or on the boss, this is a significant loss.

Service is...iffy in my honest opinion. A good example is iron qon heroic, often times I find him coming over and staying on me. I've tried commanding it to attack but even after say 5 seconds it finally moves over to my target, obviously later on it will pick up in the fight with cleave from the other guardians but it's still very annoying. Another example is depending on your megaera strat, I have a huge gap always between me and the boss because our raid leader makes range stay at max distance, so I usually go supremacy here. I like service for pure single target (durumu) and cleave, any time after that I just don't like it.